It is well known that the most expensive place to hold merchandise is on the shelf of a retail store because of all resources it consumes until that point, such as labor, transportation, and storage costs. In addition, consumer study conducted by Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) showed that of the products consumers want in a grocery store, 6% to 8% are out-of-stock. For promotional items, this number jumps to 25% out-of-stock products. The study concluded that the out-of-stock levels add up to about $100 billion in lost sales for retailers.
Therefore, there is a need for retail mechanisms that would enable retailers to meet customers' demands without having to hold merchandise on the shelves. For example, a retail system disclosed in my copending U.S. patent application No. 09/745,420 filed on Dec. 26, 2000, entitled “RETAIL SYSTEM WITH PURCHASE ORDERING” and incorporated herewith by reference, employs a purchase ordering mechanism in a retail system controlled by a control system and comprising at least one storage facility for storing goods available for sale in the retail system, and multiple points of sale. Each point of sale enables a customer to obtain an ordered purchase after a time period sufficient to deliver the ordered purchase from the storage facility to the point of sale. To order the purchase, the customer may use a computer terminal remote with respect to the purchase obtaining points, or a computer terminal installed at one of the purchase obtaining points. Alternatively, a purchase may be ordered via a telephone system.
A purchase ordering terminal, disclosed in my copending application No. 10/354,025 filed on Jan. 30, 2003 entitled “GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR PRODUCT ORDERING IN RETAIL SYSTEM” and incorporated herewith by reference, is a touch screen computer having a touch sensitive screen. The user interfaces with the computer by appropriately touching areas of the display screen with the finger to execute commands, enter data, respond to prompts, etc. In response to the user's inputs, the terminal displays multiple screens enabling the user to select a point of sale, delivery time, and collect required products in a “basket” or “shopping card”.
To facilitate a product ordering procedure, it would be desirable to provide interactions between user's voice commands and images displayed on the screen during a product ordering session. Therefore, it would be desirable to create a multimedia product ordering terminal utilizing voice and image data for enabling the user to order required products.